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Table of Contents

This guide contains instruction on how to play Wall Shaman, also known as
Concede Shaman, or BogChamp Shaman. It is an extremely oppressive deck that
involves blocking the opponent out of the game with borderline unbreakable
walls of Taunts. It is extremely effective at shutting down common Tempo
decks that rely on curving out through their Mana and developing consistent
threats on the board. If you are looking for something different to play on the
ladder to counter all the Zoo and Shaman you come up against, this deck is a
great choice.

1. About the Author

This deck is presented to you by Sottle,
a professional Hearthstone player who plays for compLexity Gaming.
Sottle regularly streams on Twitch and explains all of his moves. Watching him is a good opportunity to see how
this and other decks play out in practice, and how decisions are made in real time.

2.1. Mana Curve

0

1

10

10

0

4

3

2

3. Strategy

Wall Shaman is an oppressive Control deck that aims to force people out of
the game by repeatedly clearing their board until eventually putting up an
unbreakable wall of Taunt minions that they are unable to ever break through.
It is also known as "Concede Shaman" due to it finishing very few games through
actually killing the opponent, and many more from your opponent conceding after
they can no longer win.

The early-game package of the deck was bolstered significantly by the One
Night in Karazhan Adventure which introduced both Maelstrom Portal and
Spirit Claws. These cards are crucial to allow you to mitigate some of
your opponent's early board development and help you to maintain control of the
game until the mid-game turns. Both of these new additions are made exponentially
more powerful by Spell Damage which means that Bloodmage Thalnos is also
included in the deck to allow you to have access to Spell Damage more consistently.

The deck plays no early game minions that can occupy the board, so your
early game turns will consist primarily of using your Hero Power to summon
Totems and passing. These Totems are useful tools to buy you time however as
people will generally respect their usefulness and trade into them, protecting
your life total. This will cause you to fall behind on the board however, which
means you will eventually have to catch up with an AoE option.

Far Sight is another card that can potentially be used in the early-game
but it is not as straightforward a decision to use it on turn 3 as it may seem.
Although Far Sight can hit important cards like your huge Taunt minions and
AoE effects, most cards that you draw will not be used immediately in the early-game.
Using a Far Sight in the early-game will mean that you usually skip pressing
your Hero Power, which can be key if you already hold Thing from Below
in your hand.

Your eventual goal is to build up a wall of Taunt minions with the
resummoning effect from Ancestral Spirit in place. This is a multi-step
process and involves a significant amount of setup, and you must go about it
in different ways against different matchups. Against Aggro decks, you will want
to clear out their early-game minions with an AoE before dropping your first big
Taunt minion. While this is the ideal scenario, it cannot always be relied upon.
It is important to react to the situation of the matchup and understand your
route to victory. If you are able to clear the board in the mid-game then your
first Taunt minion will often stick to the board, meaning that you can follow it
up with various combinations of Ancestral Spirit and Faceless Manipulator,
or simply more Taunt minions and start to wall them out of the game. If this
does not prove possible however, you may simply have to begin dropping huge Taunts
one after the other into their existing board and hoping to exhaust
their resources.

Against Control or Midrange decks, more specific matchup knowledge is required.
You must be aware of your opponent's specific removal options and how best to
play around them. Against decks with hard removal options like Hex,
Polymorph, or Sap you will need to exhaust these options before
making a big combo play with Ancestral Spirit. Your individual Taunt minions
such as Bog Creeper and Earth Elemental are usually sizable enough
on their own to demand an answer from your opponent. Especially since they are
obligated to deal with it or run the risk of you following up with
Ancestral Spirit and Faceless Manipulator on the following turn. It is
important however to drop these minions in situations where they cannot simply
deal with them on the board however, so you can accurately gauge whether they
have the hard removal in their hand.

Cairne Bloodhoof and Thing from Below are included in the deck
as alternate targets outside of the massive Taunts for you to occupy the board
in the mid-game, or to be the basis for your Faceless Manipulator combos
if the matchup situation demands it. Thing From Below can easily be brought
down to 0 Mana in this deck due to the amount of passive plays you end up making
with this deck in the early-game. Due to this, Thing from Below can be used immediately
with Ancestral Spirit and Faceless if your opponent is not allowing you
to stick a bigger minion to the board. Cairne is an alternate option that can
be used to test for the hard removal mentioned earlier but also functions as
an alternate win-condition against particular decks. Against Control Warrior
variants in particular, they will find it much more difficult to deal with
a board of Cairnes that have been hit with Ancestral Spirit than the alternative
huge taunts.

Outside of the threats and combo pieces in the deck, the remainder is made
up of survival tools. Between the 4 AoE options, the two Healing Waves
and the Hallazeal the Ascended you have an incredible amout of survivability,
which means against many aggressive decks you can simply outlast all of their
threats until they have no resources left to contest you with. Against more
powerful late-game decks, these tools simply give you the time you need in order
to set up your powerful board states.

3.1. Synergies & Combinations

The Ancestral Spirit plus Faceless Manipulator combination
is the key component of the deck and allows you to create incredibly oppressive
board states by creating multiple copies of huge Taunt minions.

Lava Shock is key for mitigating the heavy overload effects in the
deck. The combo with Elemental Destruction is particularly potent and
is an important combination on turn 5 against a lot of Aggro decks.

3.2. Mulligans & Matchup Specific Strategies.

Primarily your mulligan will involve looking for Doomsayer to
provide you with time in the early-game. Alongside this, you can keep
Spirit Claws and Maelstrom Portal in your opening hand if
you are expecting an Aggro deck, but these cards should often be Mulliganed
away against Control. Far Sight is also a reasonable option to keep
in your opening hand.

Against decks with numerous early-game minions with low health, such as
Zoo and Tempo Mage, you can keep Lightning Storm or Maelstrom Portal
in your opening hand
in order to buy time in the early-game. Against aggressive board flooding
decks such as these, Doomsayer is a key component. One combination
that is often overlooked is Doomsayer and Ancestral Spirit, this
serves a double purpose of almost guaranteeing that you can get at least one
of the Doomsayers to go off, however, if your opponent cannot even deal with the
first Doomsayer, the second one will stick to the board after their turn is over
and allow you an entire second turn of freedom to cast Far Sight or make
whatever other set up play you need to make.

Against Control decks, the matchup is generally about playing around their
hard removal options as outlined in the strategy section. However, you should
also be careful with your Hexs, as they will usually be reserved
for the huge threats at the end of your opponent's Mana Curve such as
C'Thun or Ragnaros the Firelord.